Three U.S.-based academics won the 2024 Nobel economics prize on Monday for research that explored the aftermath of colonisation to understand why global inequality persists today, especially in countries dogged by corruption and dictatorship.
Simon Johnson and James Robinson, both British-American, and Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu were commended for their work on “how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges,” said Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.
“They have identified the historical roots of the weak institutional environments that characterize many low-income countries today,” he told a press conference.
The award came a day after a World Bank report showed that the world’s 26 poorest countries – home to 40% of its most poverty-stricken people – are more in debt than at any time since 2006, highlighting a major reversal in the fight against poverty.
“I think that’s the biggest concern that I see in the industrialised world,” he said, adding the Nov. 5 presidential election was “a serious stress test” for U.S. democracy.
Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson is at the University of Chicago, where he spoke at a press conference on Monday and referred to his co-laureates as his “best friends.”
“I’m not someone who thinks that economists have a kind of cure for everything, or they have some silver bullet,” he said. “Ideas are important in terms of giving people levers or giving people ways to think about the problems in their society.”
